You ever meet someone, and upon looking at them, or talking to them, you know you shouldn’t have taken the chance? You stand around and make idle chitchat, but you know that you should have taken off running at the first chance you got. That’s what it felt like dealing with Angyl. Like I should have kept going, started running. And never stopped. But even so, I felt like I could have run for the rest of my life, and even then, she would have been waiting for me when I stopped, wherever I stopped.

I was raised with Rev. He’s like a brother to me. His parents died right when he was born, so he’s been raised by his Aunt Serkis and Uncle Layne. They happen to be the top of the ladder of drugs and all else that goes on. Under them, and primarily in control these days, is Lucidius. Harley married him and they have a kid too. Everyone got married, for the symbolic value of passing on names, and the irony of the legality in it. So they raised him. They did a lot of helping in raising me. Just as my mother did a lot of help in raising him. We were like siblings, due to our upbringing together. It was logical. We were kept apart at times; there were parts of growing up that pushed us apart. But being we didn’t go to public school until the later years of our childhood, when most of the important lessons had been integrated, we relied on each other a lot for companionship. We kept each other occupied, teaching each other whatever we happened to learn along the way.

We all came together under the direst circumstances, but we shook hands and we decided to meet up again. And that’s how the Trio was reestablished. We kept in touch. Rev and I were in and out of the tattoo shop all the time. We tried to talk to the family about Angyl. They merely warned us to be careful, stay away if we could. Instead, we went to see her more often. There was just something about her. She looked like she was having the time of her life, and she was always scheming. And no matter what she was scheming about, she just had this…feel to her that made you want to be a part of it. We met up with her at night usually, when everything was shut down or self-sufficient.

We met and we traded tragedies, sharing sob stories and bonding. Rev and I did most of the talking. We didn’t find out all that much about Angyl’s upbringing, except that her parents were both murdered. We took the knowledge we had of one another into question, always careful not to let the others get the upper hand. Don’t let anyone know too much. As much as I loved Rev, growing up with him and all, there’s still a lot I wouldn’t trust him with either. There’s a delicate line that can’t be crossed. Between family and business. And when your family is the business, well then, that’s trouble.

We were all some form of trouble. And together, we were something fierce. In public, ways cleared immediately for us. Rev and I spoke to our family less and less, stayed out more, shunning responsibilities in school. We spent a lot of time with Angyl, taking in as much as we could. She was an endless source of knowledge. And she was an expert on the legends. Which was logical…being one of them.

Angyl Hunter. Check your history books. She was the niece to Harvey Hunter. As hard as we tried to push her to tell us how it was possible, she never would. Until we pushed hard enough one day, and she snapped. I’m not going to explain everything; you’ll have to consult previous stories and accounts to get the full story of Harvey. I’ll say this much, to sum her up, in short – Harvey and Magus were made for each other. After Magus died, Harvey killed his father, who was responsible for his death, and then turned the gun on herself. She’s one of the oldest legends we’ve got.

Angyl is the child of the Endless – Entropy and Elysium, a tradition that’s been going on for generations. The two black clad ghosts that loom at the scene, hidden from view, disappearing from sight and back again with the wind. Every time a set died, a new one was chosen. That was the responsibility of Syn’s family. To pick the new pair to replace the last. The current pair were the Drake kids. And the pair before that were Angyl’s parents.

And everyone knew who killed the most famous pair of all.

Toryn Ransom.

Rev’s distant cousin. Long since dead.

Angyl’s revenge was stolen from her ages ago. But she swore to Rev that she bore him no ill will for the misfortune of the name he was born with. No, it was a different idea that she had brewing in her mind, a different task that she wanted us to help her with.

She wanted to kill the Drakes. The current Endless. And end the cycle, permanently.

As insane as it sounded, we sat down and heard her out, listened to her points. And believe it or not, they were all valid arguments. This madness had been going on for generations. Syn’s family was in control of it. Syn was the last surviving member of her family, and she was dead. Pike, her significant other, bolted after she died. Nobody knew where he went, but nobody really expected him to stick around either.

She wanted to kill Payge and Set Drake. End the madness. Destroy the proof. End the cycle so that it could never be restarted again. Finish it. For always. It wasn’t a bad idea. But it was still murder, cold-blooded murder. She had purpose, but that was the point. Angyl had purpose. What the hell did she need us for? That was the major hitch – the piece that didn’t fit. That was what made the formula turn out inaccurate. It was just…suspicious. Why hire someone to do for you what you can do yourself?

I don’t know if Rev was as suspicious as I was. Every so often he’s too trusting, then again, with her, I might not have been able to blame him. And not for nothing, he’s a guy. Of course he’s going to want to trust her. Guys are jerks every so often. She had his attention without even trying. You had to work to get me to keep up. I got bored easily. Or distracted.

As I was saying…

Angyl Hunter is like a puppy from far away, cute and fluffy – you want to hang around her. But you get close, you’ll realize she’s more of a wolf than anything else – and she might be rabid as well. The mysteries of that girl never ended.

It still didn’t make sense, why she couldn’t do this alone. Why it took three people to kill two, I couldn’t understand. She tried to explain:

The Drakes are legendary. Their job was to carry away the bodies over time. That’s all that they were supposed to do. They’ve been surrounded by death for years. They bear no fear of it – and they can probably feel it coming a few miles away. They’re not all that close with her as it is. She needed support. She needed a distraction; she needed security. Hence, she came to us.

The street demon.

And the ringleader.

She wasn’t directly saying that she needed help. No. I don’t think any of us had ever uttered those three words in our lifetimes. She would have hacked it alone if she had to. But she wanted us to be part of something great, momentous. She wanted to include us. As the last surviving members of three of the greatest families that ever were, she felt that we should all do something together; to solidify the greatness that once was, that continues through us, and the reformation of the Trio. If we could pull this off. “If” being the operative term.

So we were planning on killing the Drakes. The current owners of the tattoo shop, the Black Dragon, one of the few great centers of all things. It had survived generations, as very few things did anymore. And even after them, it would continue to stand and function. As long as we pulled this off right. If we got away with it, everything would keep spinning. If. That was the major screw in the works. We had to pull this off correctly. There was no room for failure. This would possibly be the biggest thing we’d ever done in our lives. No room for failure.

Angyl had been over the possibilities; this was serious, for real. And it would be forever when we did it. There would be no coming back. This is the real world. Once the trigger’s pulled, once the body falls – game over. That’s it. Always.

This would take time, patience, effort – conspiring. We had consideration to put into the event as a whole. This wasn’t something we could just nod to in a moment. Not something that we could ponder for half a second before making an ecstatic reply. No. This was important. This single decision could make or break us. Literally. This could mean life or death. And if we screwed up, if we managed to get caught, we weren’t guaranteed a quick and easy death. No, this wouldn’t be simple. This wouldn’t be a walk in the park. And we would have to treat it as such. We would take it seriously. Treat it with concern and consideration. A decision not made lightly.

When all that separates the living from the damned is a click, a subtle motion of the finger, the slow squeezing that starts the chain reaction, ending in the bang that defines eternity. Something that simple can have such catastrophic after effects. And that was why this decision wouldn’t be made lightly. We had to take everything into account. All parts of the equation had to be discussed and understood. Equally.

The final consensus was this. In three days we would decide our course of action. After that, we’d only have each other to truly depend on. After that it would be flying low, staying below the radar, sneaking by undetected. We would consider all the options, weigh matters of conscience and see how balanced the scales were. Angyl had good reason – she had really good justification for this. It wasn’t about revenge. This was about ending the madness, once and for all. It was a sort of public service. But the fact still remained, our overwhelming suspicion. A voice echoed in my head, warning me otherwise, but was never heard. Never did I adhere to its wise words. At times, I really wish I’d paid more attention. Especially to the details.

I have a final decision to make – possibly the most important one of my life. I plan to consider it from all angles and come to a final conclusion, but not before making effective use of my time, balancing the tables, considering everything. This would be taken as seriously as I could manage. I left the other two to whatever other conspiring they had in mind, wary of their shift of tones and expressions as I made my way out. I walked home, changing my mind along the way. I set out for the show, for my niche in the underground.

The death of the Drakes would be the death of a legend. The final abrupt conclusion to a fairy tale that had been going on for years and had been unable to wind itself down. And so, here we are. We’re faced with the choice of forcing its end, or waiting it out.

If you don’t mind, I have a life or death decision to make. This could be my future.

Maven and I decided to learn as much as we could from Angyl, try and get the upper hand, find out what she was up to. Being she was in such an important part of the neighborhood, with access to some very important people, we’d need to know what, exactly, she was planning. She was very influential and manipulative, this I realized almost immediately. I pushed her as much as I could, to learn the more important facts that Maven was missing.

Angyl knew tons. She was a story in herself, that much we knew. Because of her upbringing, she knew how everything ran. That didn’t sit well with me. At all. I was the street boss and she knew how my operation worked. She knew who was at the top and who took charge when I was absent. She just knew too damn much. I figured that she learned this from careful observation. My crew was loyal and wouldn’t sell me out.

The thing with Angyl was that her parents were murdered by my distant cousin, Toryn Ransom. And that didn’t sit well with me either. Toryn’s been dead for years now, so Angyl couldn’t exactly take revenge. But if you can’t kill the actual murderer, why not settle for the next best thing? And with all of the Ransom family dead, save me, who else was there to target? My point. Thank you.

So, we got closer to Angyl anyways. We gave to her and she gave to us. We learned on all sides. And we shared information. And when it was felt that we could trust each other to a certain degree, Angyl revealed her plan to us. The reason for our union of sorts. For the reestablishment of the Trio.

She wanted to kill the Drakes. The Endless. The owners of the Black Dragon. And she wanted us to help her. She explained simply that it would end everything. The madness, the cycle, things would be left to nature, as they should be. And that would be the end of ends. That would be where everything should have ended. And will end. But she needed our help.

In terms of the numbers, it made sense. It was better to have three on your side; three was better than one in this case, especially against two powerful adversaries such as these. We’d want as much on our side as we could get. It was just good planning. Strength in numbers, element of surprise, the home team advantage…strategy. This would take actual thought and planning, we couldn’t just jump on board.

I was skeptical to give Angyl a weapon of any sort, but more so, giving her right or reason to use it. But if she needed to have one, I was sure that she would. She was that kind of a girl, the take charge sort. She knew what needed to be done. And she had a plan as to how. I sat back and quietly took it all in. When the time was right, I would take charge. This kind of operation was part of my line of work. Nobody died around here without someone up top’s say so. Or mine. And I had to have damn good reason. There was no authorization here except from ourselves. And I was kind of sketchy on the plan itself.

Angyl was the kind of girl you wanted to trust. But she was dangerous as well. Irish wasn’t always trustworthy, and I knew her well enough to tell when she was or wasn’t. I wasn’t close enough to Angyl to make such judgments. I would be taking a gamble while participating. But Maven was on board for this. And I would protect her. I would stay by her side for this; I wouldn’t let her go through this alone. In case it backfired, I’d be there to drag her out. Or to take the shot. This just didn’t sit as well with me as it should have.

Angyl wanted to kill two people. But she was good at scheming. She had a plan and an idea. Why did she need us? She had that figured out as well. She had everything taken into account. She knew what needed to be done and how. She needed strength, she needed backing, just in case. She needed people to depend on. She needed help, that’s what she was saying. And we were eager to be at her beck and call. I can’t imagine why.

So we would help her kill the Drakes. Maven was still a bit uncertain, but I knew that she would decide to be involved. This was too big, too important to pass up. It’s like bypassing history. We would be destroying a legend, one of the oldest, possibly the only continuous one. Who would pass up being part of history?

That was the basic idea. To kill the Drakes. Would we take part, would we help her? Yes? Or no? Would we walk away from history?